It looks like the problem I am having is either a bug in bzr, or a bad http proxy. I found this bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/198646 that seems similar to the error I am getting. Also, the fact that I am probably as far away from the savannah servers as possible, doesn't help. Anyway, I was wondering if there was an anynomous sftp access. Maybe that will work better.
-Tom